Monday, February 24, 2014

Continuing our breakneck speed posting schedule of almost once a year there are a couple of things you may want to know about.

The first is LOST 2014, a fan gathering to celebrate 10 years since the TV show first aired on our screens -

"LOST 2014, a non-profit event, is an official fan gathering in Hawaii to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of LOST’s premiere. Join us in Oahu September 20 – 22, 2014 for an event LOSTie’s won’t want to miss. Visit locations where the show filmed, get to know other fans who love LOST as much as you do, and take part in other activities as we commemorate the show."

During the LOST 2014 event there will also be the second Cancer Gets LOST charity auction. I've heard there are some great items being lined up for the event and it will definitely be something to keep an eye on.

I know that quite a few friends of LOSTARGs will be there so let us know if you are going as well.

LOST2014 does cost some money to register for but that will include some great items as part of the itinerary of the weekend if you can make it to Hawaii. Registration is now open if you want to sign up, or if you just want more information go to the main website - lost2014.com

Tomorrow night, Friday April 26th, we’re opening a new exhibit called “The Bad Robot Art Experience” at the art gallery I own, G1988. It’s in conjunction with JJ Abrams & Bryan Burk, the two dudes who run that insanely powerful production company that’s about to make fucking Star Wars. For those who don’t know, they’ve made TV shows like LOST, Fringe & Alias and movies like Star Trek, Cloverfield & Super 8. JJ also wrote Joyride, which is the thing I love him for the most. Our history with Bad Robot is very important to me, and honestly the reason why I’ve been able to call myself successful.

10 years ago when we opened the gallery and knew NOTHING of what we were doing with the world’s first pop culture art gallery, a man named Luis from Disney walked in and asked me about a mural down the street that Disney had commissioned for Tinkerbell. I told him I thought it was awful and every reason why, since he didn’t identify himself as a Disney big wig until about 30 minutes later when he handed me his business card and asked if we ever thought about “consulting.” I had NO idea what consulting meant, but I knew his mural was shit and that seemed like enough to say yes. Over the next two years we worked with Disney, helping with ideas and creating art shows to both strengthen the Disney name in the art world and promote certain projects they were focusing on. They never made us do anything and it was an all-around great experience that basically changed our lives.

Our time with Disney led us to working with Mattel, who we ended up working on Hot Wheels & Masters of the Universe with. During our Hot Wheels exhibit, a producer for the TV show LOST, Noreen, saw what we were doing and assumed we could do something similar for the show, which was entering its final season. We made up a pitch and drove to the ABC offices a few days later with a concept that was so weird and insane, that it barely made sense to me. There would be a scavenger hunt, and free limited edition items at every stop and a screenprint that fans could buy each time as well. Oh, and ABC couldn’t really promote it. And it involved comedian Paul Scheer and velvet paintings. And they had to just let us be - we only wanted notes from Damon & Carlton. Normally we’d be thrown out of the office, but we had a real partner with Bad Robot, a group of producers willing to take a risk on unique marketing strategies and heartfelt/artistic ways to reach out to fans. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse basically told the network they HAD to hire us and JJ Abrams & Bryan Burk basically asked us to “do our thing.” When the campaign ended up insanely successful, JJ was the first person who asked to meet with me and congratulate us. And that started it all. Agencies in Hollywood wanted to represent our gallery as an entity, I ended up landing marketing gigs at ABC, Sony, Comedy Central, Paramount, etc and even got to work with Bad Robot again with Fringe and Person of Interest. But none of this would’ve been possible without Bad Robot and the team at LOST taking a chance on a wild idea and a group of passionate artists.

And now we have The Bad Robot Art Experience. This art exhibit has commissioned more than 100 artists to create pieces inspired by their TV shows, movies and logo. All for sale, all either one-of-a-kind or limited edition. JJ And Bryan have been involved since the moment we had the idea. They’ve been so supportive, as they always have been, and being able to include a charity they love and work closely with, The Mission Continues, was just icing on the cake. They’ve seen the work now, by email, and they were BLOWN AWAY. I don’t even think they knew where to start. And once they return from their Star Trek publicity tour and are able to come to the gallery, seeing all the pieces in person will probably start the amazement all over.

We open tomorrow night, 7-10 PM at 7308 Melrose Ave. It’s a VERY, VERY good art show. I would love for you to see it. If you can’t make the opening reception, the show is open everyday, Wednesday - Sunday from 11-6 PM through May 18th. And if you live outside of Los Angeles, we’ll put up all the work online for purchase Saturday afternoon at gallery1988.com.

We are so thankful for our friends at Bad Robot, especially JJ Abrams & Bryan Burk, who took a chance on us back in the day - and now we get to repay them by tributing the empire they built. See you tomorrow night.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Hopefully you all recognise the Apollo Bar logo that was used during the original LOST ARG, The Lost Experience, and I know some of you still have the original bars stashed away.

Well this is my version of the logo incorporated into this t-shirt design and it will be on sale at TeeBusters.com starting on Friday 17th of August for 48 hours. All of my commission from TeeBusters for the sale will go to support the Cancer Gets Lost charity event.

Please spread the details of Cancer Gets LOST and please also tell others about the t-shirt so as many people as possible know about it on Friday.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

I thought that there wouldn't be any more action on this blog (not until a new series of LOST is created anyway) but I was wrong.

Jo Garfein and her friend Jared have created an "Initiative" called Cancer Gets LOST. It is a charity event and auction that contans all things LOST. The charity that has been chosen by Jo and Jared is the US National Brain Tumor Society

You will not want to miss this event and will definitely start to salivate at all the items available.

If you needed any more persuation to take a look at the items available Damon Lindelof kindly created a short video message about the cause.

Now for the reason this is very relevant to LOSTARGS, amongst the items for auction there are several LOST poster series items, variously signed by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, Jorge Garcia and more.

This maybe your last chance to get these posters at anywhere near their original value and some are prints that were never previously available to the public. For example there is a copy of The Swan Station by Rob Jones available which is #8/300, and a copy of Eric Tan's The Crash which is #16/300.

It isn't just the Gallery 1988 art series that is for sale there are originals by Dr Mikey Studios, signed prints by J.J. Harrison and even a Zort70 Alcatraz poster !

The amount of items is stunning for a LOST fan and my problem will be to know where my bank balance can be stretched to without completely breaking.

Friday, August 5, 2011

In a way it is a shame that we were going to Comic Con, I could have quite easily spent the four days just chatting with everyone and hanging out at the barracks. However tickets had been bought and we needed to attend.

All over the San Diego Convention Center and Gaslamp quarter LOST actors, directors, writer and producers were in attendance, most in new roles on new shows.

I have to admit my Thursday at the Con was a bit of a disappointment, I missed nearly everything that I wanted to see and to make it worse I got tweets from everyone else saying they had found and met lots of cool people. Thursday evening got a lot better when my wife and I attended W00tstock 3.0 with Will Wheaton and a cast of assorted musicians and comedians, but that’s another story.

All over the four days of Comic Con I saw people walking round with LOST t-shirts and other related items. On the day of the EW LOST panel I was in line for Ballroom 20 and saw a guy a few rows in front had a DHARMA jumpsuit on. I went over and asked if he was going to the panel and he said he didn’t realise there was one, he was just there in the jumpsuit as he liked LOST.

This photo is of the end of the line when we were "near" the front at around 2000 people mark.

So on Friday after getting into Ballroom 20, queuing from early in the morning (after 4 hours sleep), I managed to see some of the panels I wanted to. I then took the decision to leave and go to the room where the LOST panel was going to be held to try and guarantee a good seat. Some of the barracks residents were already there and at that time there was no problem in getting a seat and trying to save some seats for other people.

Unfortunately the guests in the panel room before the LOST panel were not altogether sure if people were there for them or for some other reason. I did learn a lot about the Bone series of comics, a Portuguese comic artist who didn’t speak any English and an award winning British Comic artist.

Anyway the preceding panels were finished and throughout this time the room was filling up. Just before the EW panel started I got up and looked around. I recognised so many faces and said hello to several of them. People came up to me and said hello, introducing themselves with their online names from LOSTARGs. One other LOST related name in the room, just sat in a seat like us ordinary people was Michael Giacchino, as soon as people realised who he was there was a bit of stampede to go over, get photographs and generally just say hello.

Someone even came up and handed me a bundle of cash, it was explained that the readers of the LOSTARGS.com blog had taken a collection for me during the DCaaPB campaign to try and purchase a Transmission poster. After a year of trying it hadn’t happened so the opportunity was taken to get the money to me directly.

I am still flabbergasted by the generosity and friendship you have all provided and have to say thank you again for all everyone here has done and continues to do.

A banner that had been hanging in the barracks was transported to Comic Con and hung on the panel table to add to the atmosphere. The EW panel started, and to be honest the start was a bit of a blur for me, there are some videos online if you want to find them, and I won’t go into too much detail but after a brief exchange a Star Wars Stormtrooper marched down the central aisle. Removing the helmet it turned out to be Carlton Cuse. Next into the room wearing a DHARMA jumpsuit and a Bobba Fett helmet turned out to be Damon Lindelof.

I told you at the start that Surreal is the word to remember !

So after an exchange between Carlton and Damon we got to find out what the Marbled Rye is and if you haven’t seen the film yet then please do yourself a favour and watch it. You may have to search on You Tube for it as it doesn't seem to be available on the ABC site at the moment.

After that a short question and answer session took place with the people asking the questions getting a special poster, created by JJ Harrison, from Damon and Carlton. Why the panel was so special and the poster giveaway was fantastic is another completely amazing and heart warming story which shows again that LOST has become more than just a TV show. Click here to read more about the reason the posters were so special and where the storm trooper armour came from.

On a side note the process of getting Carlton Cuse out of the Storm Trooper armour was another moment that I wouldn’t have missed for all the world and couldn’t have been funnier if it had been arranged this way.

Some of the early questions in the Q&A session were about specific plot points that people wanted clearing up, and Damon and Carlton made it clear that they would not be answering anything that specific.

One final observation about the LOST panel was the final question, asked by one of the barracks residents, and the question contained that word again – Surreal.

So the panel finished with so many people wanting to talk to Damon and Carlton, get signatures etc., but not being able to as the organisers needed to set up for the next panel in the room. I did sneak in and get Carlton to sign my LOST lighthouse t-shirt, but I guess I’ll have to try and track Damon down some other time to get his signature as well.

After a brief period of beaming smiles and not quite believing what had just happened the barracks residents eventually went off for a meal in the Gaslamp quarter to dissect the events of the day and spend some time together. We even had some other LOST fans join us and cause total confusion for the waitress by asking for an extra chair.

After the EW LOST panel

The end of the EW panel was not the last LOST related item as there was a Jay and Jack meetup that night and a panel the next day. During the Jay and Jack meetup I turned round and saw Superman challenging a mere mortal to a push up contest, Superman won of course. I told you surreal was the word to remember !

However the rest of Comic Con went by relatively peacefully, with the barracks residents flying in and out to the various events. World Premieres were attended, huge lines negotiated and lots of posters, swag and other assorted goodies were obtained, just run of the mill Comic Con stuff :-)

I found out a little later that there were people arriving and staying at the barracks that I didn’t get to meet. The need to queue early in the morning in order to get in to a panel in the afternoon is one of the really frustrating things about Comic Con in my experience.

My favourite non-LOST panel was the Fringe panel and the actors producers and writers had a real chemistry and delight in being there. This was followed by a screening of the new JJ Abrams led show Alcatraz and a short panel with Jorge Garcia, Elizabeth Sarnoff and Jack Bender in attendance. A lot of the questions asked were LOST related so it seems it is going to take a very long time for people to forget about LOST.

Throughout the four days the main thing that kept us all in contact was Twitter, we could all access the internet in some form or other so Twitter was an ideal medium to stay in touch. During the Sunday morning Hall H line I found someone else I wanted to meet who was a few rows away. We only spent a few minutes talking but we would never have found each other if it wasn’t for Twitter.

After Comic Con

You may have thought that Comic Con was the end of the fun, but no not quite. Although the barracks was emptied on Monday morning it was time to take the show on the road.

The first stop was the Disney and ABC studios in LA, a kind lostie who works at the Disney studios offered to give some of us a tour of the studios. On the way packed into three cars we again used Twitter to try and negotiate our way around the LA traffic and all arrived at approximately the same time.

The LOST highlights of the tour were seeing building 23 where the production offices were located, many photographs were taken and some impromptu planking took place. The people sat in the reception of the building must have wondered who the bunch of weirdo’s were, but we didn’t get escorted out by security just yet.

In one building I suddenly noticed a lot of activity around the bottom of a set of stairs, lots of pointing and photograph taking. It turned out to be a list of the building offices and who occupies them and Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were listed. A brief plan to go upstairs and burst into the office were drawn up and then rejected as being slightly too stalkerish !

The rest of the tour was fantastic with lots to see and wonder at in the animation studios. After the tour we then moved on to Venice beach where that evening a final meal with the majority of people together was held. A final chance to talk about everything that had happened and how much fun the whole week had been. Even more people arrived, partners, sisters and others, all had a great time and it was a delightful evening.

After the meal it was time to say a lot of goodbyes and farewells. A smaller group of losties were off to Hawaii to take in some of the sights and places. Some of us had a quick trip around LA to view the Hollywood sign and some simply left for home.

I don’t think it needs saying that we were all again using Twitter to track each other and find out where we were all heading and what we were all doing.

Home

Another week later and some have not fully got over the jet lag yet, some have only just returned home, but I think all are already wishing that we could arrange another trip to the barracks wherever it is next located.

Throughout the trip people kept telling me that the reason everyone was there was because of me, although I take a little bit of responsibility for creating the starting point for people to gather online I am definitely not the person responsible for the success of The Barracks. A presentation was held at the party for one special person and hopefully they know how much we appreciate their efforts.

I can’t give enough thanks to everyone that made the effort to come from all corners of the globe, or even just round the corner and made my wife and I feel so at home.

I said at the top that the word to bear in mind was surreal, after creating this short (!) write-up of the some of the events of the last few weeks that word seems even more appropriate. I am in denial that I was there, only some of the photographs have convinced me that I was truly in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Monterey Bay, Paso Robles, San Diego, and LA over the last few weeks with some of the best people I have ever met.

I hope to do it again someday and if I didn’t say hi at Comic Con then I hope to say hi in person sometime in the future.

By the way the competition I mentioned in the first part of the article will be coming in the next day or so, it is mainly for you people that were not lucky enough to go to San Diego.

I am writing this a couple of weeks after Comic Con, and the scope of what happened is still struggling to sink in. This article may be quite long, but I’m not going to apologise for that as I need to describe all that happened. The bonus for having to endure the long article is that there is a competition at the end.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to remember how all this started, I think it stemmed from reading many times of all the fun people were having at Comic Con via all the online posts on the various social media and here on LOSTARGs in the past.

The word to bear in mind when you read this is Surreal, the whole experience from start to finish feels like a surreal dream that may or may not have existed.

Tickets

I personally decided that I wanted to try for tickets to San Diego Comic Con this year, but had no idea if I could make it across to the US at the time. In the end the process of getting tickets was a bit of a nightmare as those of you who tried for tickets will know. At one stage I had one ticket for me but not for my wife, which could have been slightly awkward ! After discussing things we had decided that we would take our main holiday this year so that we would be in the US at the time of Comic Con.

The process of obtaining tickets was made easier by several LOSTARGs members. At the designated time we got together on Skype and Twitter to encourage, give support and generally commiserate when things went wrong. In the end the first couple of times tickets were for sale it seemed that nobody got tickets, the purchasing process was just too swamped with too many people trying to purchase them. The third time I remember trying I managed to get through, and book 1 ticket. Completely frustrating as I needed 2 tickets for my wife and I and then the registration closed before I could get a second ticket.

At this time, when a few of us got tickets, it was mooted that if there were enough of us going it might be sensible to try and share some accommodation, partly to try and save some costs but mainly because it would be cool to meet up with people that have chatted online over the years.

So the next time they went up for sale we all got back together online and tried our best to get tickets. Because of the way the ticketing system now worked if you got through the first stage you could pass your ticket request onto someone else to purchase the actual ticket. Someone managed to get me a ticket request for my wife and we eventually managed to get the actual ticket for her.

I didn’t stop there and neither did several others, we kept on trying for other people that wanted to go, and in the end I managed to get a ticket request for someone else and a successful ticket purchase followed.

That wasn’t the end of the ticketing story, and lots of kind LOST fans helped each other so that as many people as possible that wanted to go got tickets.

The Build Up

Now people had tickets the hard work really started !

The talked about accommodation plan gathered coherence and one very kind person took on the task of organising this. Not an insignificant task given the number of people coming from all over the USA and all over the world.

A place was found for us and booked, two linked holiday homes in the Mission Bay Beach area of San Diego. At this point the accommodation was dubbed “The Barracks” and the thought of what was about to happen started to hit home.

During the build up to Comic Con lots of information flew around and most importantly plans for a party at The Barracks were drawn up. I shouldn’t have to tell you what the theme of the party would be, and if I do have to please stop reading this article now !

Information gathered from Twitter and other sources suggested that several people were planning surprises for the party, I also had a few things that I wanted to do.

In the end many people sent DHARMA pallet drops to the one person who was a San Diego resident, from all accounts the post office and courier services had worn a groove in the drive by the time Comic Con arrived.

Arrival

The time was nearly upon us and the week before we were due to arrive at The Barracks my wife and I left for our holiday. We flew in to Las Vegas, went up to San Francisco and made our way down over a few days to San Diego.

All along this journey we had reports from everyone else of where they were and what they were doing. At this point although I knew people were in the same general part of the same country it still seemed like that we could have been anywhere in the world as we were still using the same online communication methods that we had always used.

Finally on Tuesday, after a long drive down the coast and through some of the LA traffic we arrived. Actually finding The Barracks was quite an achievement in itself as the streets in this area are only slightly wider than one car and they are mostly one way so if you missed a turning you had to go a considerable distance to get back to where you needed to be.

We got the car parked and were led up to the first apartment block. I went through so many thoughts on the journey down about how I would feel when I got there that I didn’t know what to think. In the end I walked in and felt instantly at home, a cold beer was pressed into my hand and some welcome food was offered.

I put names to the faces and just sat back and tried to take it all in, and just when I thought I was managing to do so I started noticing things about The Barracks. Everywhere I turned in both apartment blocks there was something LOST related. Whether it was the DHARMA labelled food, Oceanic Airlines flags, the posters and paintings on the wall, the large polar bear in the corner (cardboard cut out), the paper LOST figures on the bathroom mirror, or the giant window cling with the LOST numbers on.

The giant window cling is something I am especially pleased with as I designed it, but someone else had the vision to get it supersized and printed out that size. It turns out that some of the other residents of the apartments in the immediate vicinity of the barracks were almost convinced that we were setting up a cult after seeing the cling and other decorations being displayed.

If there was ever a place for LOST fans to be this was it.

The Party

Wednesday morning came and it was the day of the party, I feel slightly guilty looking back that I didn’t do more to help that day, but I was assured that everything was in hand.

Three of us went off to see the USS Midway which is moored permanently in San Diego harbour as a floating museum. Some went food shopping and some made even more preparations for The Barracks party.

When we returned from the Midway things were looking even more LOST related and it was hard to keep up with what was being added to the mix. One of the biggest things was the Swan Station which was bought over for the evening by Scott Adams (aka Mego Scott) You can read a lot more about this and the other LOST Mego projects at Scotts blog lostmego.blogspot.com

Several of us then went off again to collect our Comic Con badges and despite the very large queues and rumours that the second room we had to enter was actually the gateway to the underworld, we managed to get them.

It emerged that a couple of our number that were further up in the queue had Zachary Levi from Chuck pop his head out of the door and do some impromptu web casting, one of us also gave him a LOST wristband to wear as he thought it was cool.

So badges obtained we went back to the barracks to join the party. Some people were off to the Comic Con Preview night and we got messages back at the barracks about the fun they were having, a large stay puft marshmallow man model was one of the main talking points.

Burgers and sausages were cooked on the BBQ, burritos were formed, salad, chips (crisps), cheese and all manner of goodies were available to eat. Not all of us being there at the same time caused a few concerns but in the end we just started eating the large volumes of food as hunger took us.

Eventually everyone was back and in the party mood, we had other people arrive just for the party and I lost track of everyone that attended, but I am very glad that so many people came and said hello as meeting everyone had been a long time coming.

The party itself had lots of LOST related activities, the episodes were playing we had a Hurley Golf tournament, which I came second in after being beaten in the playoff. We even had an invitation to be recruited into the DHARMA initiative, by watching a short orientation film and then taking part in some psychological experiments. You can watch the orientation film created for us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NittfNTVAAw that was directed by Ben Murphy, who wasn’t able to attend but was there in spirit.

One special guest was Jo Garfein, who you may know as Jopinionated, she was at Comic Con to cover some of the new shows that will be airing soon, including Alcatraz which stars Jorge Garcia. Jo gave us a LOST quiz in which the questions ranged from the very simple to the Son of a Bitch category which were almost (but not for some) impossible. If you ever get to go to a event with Jo as the host I thoroughly recommend you do so as she entertained us in style and handed out some great prizes.

The other reason I need to mention Jo is that she was being very inscrutable about one aspect of Comic Con. Throughout the day Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof had been trading Twitter messages about something, what that something was we had no idea about at the time. One of the final tweets gave us a code word “Marbled Rye”. All of us at the party knew that there was a Comic Con panel that would be hosted by EW’s Doc Jensen, set up to discuss LOST one year after it had finished. However there was no more information and certainly no indication that anyone else would be attending. We asked Jo if she had any inside information about the tweets and the panel and all she would do is smile and say that the panel was a must see.

You must remember that when we started planning this get together there was no clue that there would be anything LOST related at this year’s Comic Con. The inclusion of any panel with the word LOST on it was a bonus in itself.

All too soon the party ended and those of us staying at the barracks went to bed happy with the LOSTness of it all. I don’t think I’ve seen so many DHARMA labelled products or LOST related items in one place and to be honest it was quite overwhelming what had been achieved by everyone that attended.

There was quite a bit of food left over from the party and each day at Comic Con I was able to take some DHARMA food and drink in. It gave me great pleasure to sit in a panel and unwrap a DHARMA chocolate bar or eat a DHARMA apple.